


Ain't No Good Thing Ever Dies

by hannahrhen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Closeted Character, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loyalty, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Rare Pairings, Sexual Content, human remains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-03 18:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1754419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahrhen/pseuds/hannahrhen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers wasn't the last to remember Bucky Barnes, or the first to recognize the Winter Soldier.</p><p>This is Howard Stark's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old Long Since Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Main and chapter titles from Tom Waits' [Take It With Me](http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/tom_waits/take_it_with_me.html).
> 
> Chapters 4 and 5 have specific warnings in the author's notes.
> 
> I've also written [a meta post](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com/post/88853180343/meta-on-aint-no-good-thing) on what inspired this story and why the narrative went a certain way. It is spoilerish, just FYI.

_December 17, 1991_

Goddamn, it was a relief to finally be going home.

Howard stared out the frosted window at the familiar hills near the mansion, empty of everything but white oaks and pines and grasses matted under half-melted clumps of snow. Dreary by every definition of the word, but still a good change from the eternal gray smog of industrial eastern Europe, where he’d dragged Maria for yet another set of meet-and-greets.

More efforts to spread the influence of Stark Industries to a post-Wall society through shoulder-gripping, liberal amounts of hard liquor, and the delicacy of security-cleared interpreters.

It was a wonder Maria was still speaking to him, forced to fake debutante cheeriness at aloof strangers throughout nearly the entire holiday season, instead of taking comfort in her own home. Come to think of it, she hadn’t, for awhile, spoken, and now she was staring out of the other window, thin fingers tucked into the door handhold. One of her nervous habits, a tell Howard had picked up on when he first spoke to her. The closer they got to home, the greater the urgency--she wanted to be there now.

“Almost there,” he said as the limo crested over well-maintained pavement, and he hoped it sounded reassuring. God knows he could screw that up.

Heard her breathe out. “Yes.” It was all she said for a moment, and then, “I’ll call Tony when we arrive. I hope we can see him tomorrow.”

And he knew what that meant. _I hope you can get over your latest argument tomorrow, Howard._ That’s what he got for thirty years of marriage--a universal translator for the woman who shared his life.

“Yes, well--,” he began, and plowed ahead anyway. “If he would just see the value of heading up R&D--” Already hammering the arguments into the wall for reference. Great opportunity for a twenty-one-year-old. Leadership potential. Ready yourself to take the reins, Tony.

_It's time, Tony._

And on and on and--

“I don’t want to talk about it now--I don’t want you to talk about it with _me._ You can tell him why he should take it. Howard,” and here she turned, and he could see how tired she was in the deeper lines around her mouth, across her forehead under her few white hairs. Long flight. Missed her home. Hated to travel. Howard really could do a number on her, and sometimes he hated himself for it. But Maria was still speaking and giving him _that_ look, and it was all too familiar. “He’s more likely to listen if you actually let him talk.”

In truth, Howard was damned tired, too, but not sloppy enough to snap back. That would end this day with an unpleasant night tossing in a guestroom bed, not his own king-sized mattress he’d missed for three weeks. He started counting silently.

“I don’t know,” he said, after he reached ten, and thankfully he'd sieved the worst of the irritation out of his tone. “That boy’s gotten real good at not listening--to me, anyway,” and, when she huffed at him a little, a gentle chide, he leaned back against the seat and returned his attention to the window. After a moment, he felt her hand touch his nearest one, and she turned it over and took it in hers.

He knew what she wanted--their son, home for Christmas like most parents would expect, not the resentment-fueled flyby they’d maybe get if they were lucky. Tony was a problem, and a big one--a problem Howard would have to figure out how to deal with eventually, if he hoped to mold his son and heir into a worthy successor for Stark Industries.

Tony would have to shake off whatever his problems were with Howard and whatever bones he had to pick about his childhood. But ...

_But._ There was still time, at least. Howard planned on hanging on until he was eighty. With Tony’s games and stubbornness, he’d have to. Had hopes for Tony’s thirtieth birthday, even if the twentieth had been nothing but tabloid headlines, bail money, and Maria in tears.

_Goddammit,_ Tony.

He squeezed Maria’s hand, bounced it up and down lightly on the cushioned seat, same as he had done when she was shy and tongue-tied on their first date. He was only sorry that Tony's issues affected his wife so much--she had every reason to expect their boy at the dinner table on Christmas Day, she’d earned it, and he was pretty certain she wasn’t going to get it.

But Tony would have to wait--there’d be enough days to try to pull him back in. What Maria didn’t know was that that their trip had a second purpose--one that, unlike the first, had ended in failure. With a few short conversations, always glancing over his shoulder, he’d prised into what he could learn about the former Soviet Union’s spy programs. Meetings sandwiched between other meetings when any number of witnesses could say Howard Stark had been discussing the capabilities of SI’s latest armaments in a roomful of old diplomats and new capitalists.

Instead, he’d been peeling away layers. KGB, then Department X, then the Red Room.

Looking for one thing. Just one.

But it had been a wash, and on another front Howard found himself bitterly disappointed. No matter what he'd tried, no matter what questions he'd asked, or how carefully, he’d come home with no new information on the whereabouts, on the true identity, of one man.

The one they called the Winter Soldier.

*******

_Forty-eight years earlier. Wartime._

Howard wasn’t sure why he’d gotten saddled with the soldier tonight--he’d just been sitting there at the makeshift bar, trying to enjoy one damned drink (maybe two, fine) while he considered improvements to the sniper rifle sights. And suddenly he’d ended up their newest sniper as a goddamned neighbor. Speak of the devil.

And the soldier was pressing far too close to Howard's shoulder at the bar, and going through the gin stores far too fast for his own good.

Knew Rogers was off behind them flirting with the only gal worth a damn in a five-mile radius, and his buddy Barnes was bored and tense and ... yeah, if he knew his human nature, maybe a little jealous. Just another cocky son of a bitch taken down a peg by war and a world that didn’t give a crap about him beyond what he could do with his hands and his--reportedly good--eye.

Nodded noncommittally at some of Barnes’ sloppy mutterings, until he’d heard a word he didn’t expect, and he looked at the man, finally.

Found himself fixed in an hostile blue gaze. “They promised me pussy--and lots of it, Mister Stark,” was repeated like a challenge, more insistent this time, tapping the bottom curve of his glass on the counter. Then, "And I ain't seen no pussy since I got over here. None at all," and, yeah, Barnes was almost three sheets to the wind, being _that_ crude and stupid.

Or maybe ... _maybe_ he was performing? Howard cocked a look over his shoulder to see Peggy Carter laughing, her hand light on Rogers’ wrist, and Rogers actually _blushing_ back, his head ducked down.

Hm.

Barnes had gone back to talking, mostly to himself, an inventory of “shit he was promised” that hadn’t come to pass. A roster of crimes. Yeah, Howard didn’t think Barnes knew _exactly_ what he was angry about. Howard had seen enough of it to know, though. Men spending a lot of time together, tight and almost tripping over each other, and tempers running awful hot for no good reason. Couldn’t peg Rogers one way or another--he was pinking up nicely as Carter found any reason to run fingers over him ... tug on a shirt sleeve, neaten his hair.

But Barnes--yeah, he knew that much at least.

If Rogers was human perfection, God’s gift in male form, Barnes ... Barnes was something else. Round and softer in the places where Rogers was hard and sharp. A gift sent from someone else entirely, and already unwrapped. A helluva sight, even roughed up a little by whatever had happened at the base.

Maybe _especially_ roughed up a little. That mouth alone, that redblooded shock of those full lips ... God had invented uses for a mouth like that, fine uses, and maybe named them sins after the fact, but--

Christ, the gin was strong. Howard lifted the glass and squinted suspiciously at it when Barnes’ attention was diverted, when the man was rambling more into the air than Howard’s ear. Shook his head and blamed his lack of sleep, forgotten dinner, and the goddamned war instead. Wondered how much Barnes had drunk. His eyes were bloodshot, but he didn’t look too unsteady yet.

Howard was bored, and maybe ... just maybe this was worth a go. The rifles could wait until the morning. He slid a cigarette from the box, tipped it end over end into his mouth--he’d practiced and knew how it looked on him. Talked around the filter, bringing Barnes’ attention to his own mouth.

“You sure it’s pussy that you want, soldier?” Grabbed the matchbox off the edge of the bar’s surface, then flicked his wrist and got a single matchstick tilting out of the box. Kept his face perfectly neutral even as Barnes looked down and knitted his eyebrows together. Turned a little pink himself.

Too much too soon, maybe. Howard set the box down on the bar and made a point of looking away from Barnes for a moment as he struck the match and tilted his head down to light the end inside cupped hands.

He looked up in time--just the right amount of time--to discover Barnes glaring at him, eyes sharp and cold like he was in the field again, delivering death, and maybe it had been a bad idea, but Howard had had worse and acted on them, and Rogers wouldn’t let Barnes kick his ass.

Probably.

“What’s that mean?” Barnes barked, and the words flowed together in an messy slur. “You trying to say something?” Angry words, yeah, but there was something else in Barnes’ expression.

Howard had seen that before, too.

He snapped his wrist to put out the match, dropped it on the floor. Took a drag off his cigarette before pinching it from his mouth to answer. “I’m tryin’ to say, maybe you can’t have what you want, Sergeant.” Howard could be a Brooklyn boy if he needed to be--masquerade well enough, anyway, to speak their language. Make himself _understood._ “At least, not if your definition is too precise.

“Maybe you should--” He looked around the room, at the other men in the corner, a few of them talking. Nobody paying attention at all to just another conversation taking place between soldiers. “--be a little more loose.”

And Howard was either gonna get punched or--

The man was half-drunk, and angry, and damaged--in some way that wasn’t obvious to everyone, and apparently not obvious enough to Rogers--and he just stared at Howard for awhile, until Howard took another drag.

Then Barnes’ attention returned to his mouth and stayed there.

And Howard knew: He wasn’t gonna get punched.


	2. I Was Never More Alive or Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been a real boost to Howard's pride, how quickly he’d pulled Barnes.

In the end, it had been a real boost to his pride, how quickly he’d pulled Barnes.

Couldn’t even believe what worked: “Come back to my quarters,” with a jerk of his head toward the doorway, a firm thump of his now-empty tumbler on the bartop. “We can discuss … the balance of your rifle. I have an idea for some improvements.” Couldn’t help but smirk. “To how it handles.”

His smile had only widened at Barnes’ shocked laugh. No, it wasn’t “I wanna show you my etchings,” but Barnes’ eyes were darting between Howard’s mouth and somewhere above his line of vision, maybe at that doorway if he was lucky, and Howard didn’t think the old etchings bit would be necessary.

He hadn’t been with a man since his second year of school, but having the same apparatus made things easy enough to remember, and, compared to Barnes, he had a feeling he’d be a regular Tesla at working things out.

Once they were inside the room, it took one look at Barnes’ face for Howard to decide that Tesla might be a little--a _lot_ \--more than this one could handle. His eyes went big, surprised, as Howard’s hands moved to his suspenders right after the door clicked shut.

So, maybe this wasn’t the best idea, Howard thought as he dropped his suspenders and moved his hands to his fly. Okay, yeah, it was a lousy idea, getting off with one of the soldiers, and Captain America’s buddy to boot, but wartime made people do stupid things. Wartime _excused_ stupid things. And he’d certainly done stupider than pulling one of the better-looking fellas from the unit, no matter whose friend he was.

Lord have mercy, that mouth.

Barnes was no Tesla, no. Wasn’t even an Edison--but he’d rallied enough when Howard had tried to take the lead, after he’d pushed Barnes a little ways toward the bed. Barnes didn’t know being with another man, maybe, but obviously he felt comfortable with whatever he’d gotten up to with women, and took some comfort in Howard’s slighter shape, the couple inches' advantage he had.

Barnes had made a show of hanging his coat on the bedpost, smooth and cocky, and then Howard himself had been pushed back and bent down onto the bed. Found himself blinking up as Barnes struggled out of his boots and dropped his belt to the floor before climbing on. Barnes’ mouth tasted like astringent booze as he figured out his way around Howard’s mustache, laughing when it first scratched at him but marshaling up his courage and going back in for more.

They’d ended up on the bed, clothes wrenched opened and pushed out of the way, and Howard had let Barnes roll on top finally just to make him feel good, let him feel big and strong. It wasn't at all because Howard enjoyed the feeling of being pinned down and rutted against, _Christ_ , no. If he arched his back and opened his legs, it was just to get them closer, to get that insistent frotting where it felt best. That was all.

After that ran its course, after Barnes’ grunts turned frustrated, Howard fished the Vaseline out of the bag next to his bed--the military handed the tins out like candy (hell, more often than candy) and pretended the men used them just for dry skin and minor burns.

Bucky felt good on top--God, he felt good, as he rubbed hard against Howard, sliding them together with a mix of spit and slick (this, Barnes clearly knew). Barnes kept their foreheads pressed close, lined their bodies up on the bed chest to knee, and it was perfect, and Howard had squirmed and fucked back and was almost--almost _there_ ...

But as drunk as Barnes was, he wasn’t going to come without help. So, when Barnes was starting to get tired and lose that good momentum, that perfect  _velocity_ , Howard reached a hand between them, gripped his own erection and Barnes’ together, and whispered, dirty and low, “Come on. Come on, Sarge--you tellin' me that's all you Brooklyn boys got? Some kissin' and a couple of shoves and you're done? Because that's not what I hear about you dirty little punks. I heard you boys'd take me for a rough ride, Sarge. Leave me _achin'_ when you're done.” Curved his belly up into Barnes’, tightened his hand around both of them as Barnes' movements became frantic again. Swallowed a groan, and spoke with hot breath right into that ear. “I heard you were good for at least one rough, nasty _fuck,_ **_soldier_** \--”

\--and that did the trick. Barnes seized on top of him, eyes squeezed shut and that pure temptation of a mouth falling open, little grunts in rhythm with the pulses across Howard's stomach, and Howard just had to pull on himself a few more times to--

_Goddamn._

Yeah. Oh, hell. That was ... messy. And great. _Jesus._ They _had_ to do this again when Barnes wasn’t three sheets to the wind, when the man was in top form. At least Howard had gotten confirmation that that mouth felt as good as it looked. Proven his hypothesis. He glanced over to where Barnes had rolled off him. Those lips were swollen now, an even darker red, and parted as Barnes caught his breath.

Wanted to run a different experiment, though. Needed more evidence.

For now, though, Howard needed sleep, and he had some loose ends to tie up. He gave Barnes just enough time to rub at the come and petroleum jelly on his stomach with a fistful of tissues, and then he stretched out on the single bed, making sure elbows and knees jostled Barnes just enough. Introduced a little discomfort. Turned up the heat.

“You need help getting back to your own bunk, Sarge?” That was the biggest one. Howard didn’t want to get mean if he didn’t have to, but he knew (some) men could be as bad as women at taking a hint. He rolled over, turning his back to the room when Barnes pushed off from the mattress and started to put his clothes back together. Made to sleep, or at least put on a good show of it.

And that was when the man decided to speak. “Bucky.” It startled Howard. “My name is Bucky,” Barnes clarified, and he suddenly sounded a lot more sober than he had an hour before. And kind of amused.

_Great._

Howard blinked at the wall. Sighed theatrically. “Really?” He rolled back over and tucked his arms behind his head. “You let people call you that?” Yeah, Howard was kind of annoyed; he’d gotten his, and someone after always wanted to get chatty. But, still: “You actually _want_ people to call you that?”

That look returned was half-amused, yes, and mostly unimpressed. “It’s my name, idiot,” and Howard’s eyebrows practically rose into his hairline. “Buchanan. James Buchanan Barnes,” and every syllable was emphasized, like Howard actually was an idiot. “My parents called me Bucky.” Which Howard already knew, of course--knew Steve Rogers called him that, anyway, and the other men had picked it up quickly.

“Okay, then,” and he could hardly stay irritated watching that fine of an ass clench and those legs move and bend as Barnes got himself back into his uniform. Had to tease, though. “It’s kind of hard to fuck a guy named _Bucky_ ,” Howard mock-confided, “but I promise I’ll try my best next time.”

Barnes--Bucky, _fine_ \--laughed. But, Howard noted, he didn’t say no. Just tugged on his shirt and began to button it up, his back now turned to Howard.

After he had gotten himself straightened out, Bucky made to go, and it looked like he was going to leave without another word. Howard, though, called after him--then lurched from the bed inelegantly when he saw the show Bucky planned to give to God-knows-who was out in the hall, on the floors below.

Grabbed the man’s upper arm to plant him in place and ignored the little smile (not a smirk--smirks were Howard’s territory) as he shuffled around the room collecting a washcloth and dipping it into the ewer of water, then dunking his own fingers for good measure.

Brushed Bucky’s hair back off his forehead, finger-combing it into place and trying to beat down that cowlick, before using the washcloth to wipe at his face. Not much to be done about the beard-burn but try to turn the rest of the man’s face shiny and pink as well.

Camouflage.

He was snorted at--actually _snorted at_ \--and he gave Bucky a hard look to shut him up before booting him out of the room. Let him get his sobering ass back to bed, then. Maybe next time Howard would find someone with good tits or a quieter mouth.

Had a feeling Barnes would be more trouble than he was worth.

The next time, though--

“Really, you won’t call me Bucky?” Howard rolled his eyes. This shit again. “Getting called Sarge and Barnes while you’re shoving your dick in me is a little too much like boot camp, ya know? Kind of _a lot_ like boot camp, come to think of it.”

The words were broken up by the laugh, one that seemed to be at Howard’s expense. And he didn’t like it. But he found some comfort in the fact that Bucky took it well, on his back, legs tight and sweet around Howard, and eventually stoppering up his own chuckles and gasps with a palm over his mouth.

For being a virgin--at least in that way, since Bucky made it clear he’d bedded “plenty of dames” back in Brooklyn, for fuck’s sake--he was a damned good sport. Maybe he’d let Barnes get it over him the next time.

Another laugh after a muffled moan, and then, “For being such a little guy, you sure know how to use your cock.”

Or maybe not. Needed to get that mouth doing something besides talking back.

There were more than a few next times, between and around the Commandos missions. Bucky would leave without a word--they weren’t sweet on each other, after all--and would return just the same … but slip into Howard’s room after dark for a very private reunion. And then out again in the deep hours of night when lookout was minimal and Rogers was in bed.

They were careful, sure, but keeping it hush-hush was tough--Bucky’s face showed too much for Howard to really ever get comfortable. Splotches of that flush on his cheeks when he left Howard’s room. Eyes bloodshot and thin skin above his breastbone still deep red from his orgasm.

And that mouth. Yes-- _God._ The best and worst of all. Just exactly as well-suited to sin as Howard had theorized, he'd found out the third time, and always reddened and puffy for too long afterward. Jesus, no, Howard didn’t mind; it made him preen like a peacock to know what made Bucky look like that.

Howard always made a show of cleaning him up after, maybe a little to inventory the destruction before he did his best to erase it. Fixed his shirt buttons, tucked the hems in tight. Nudged his belt buckle until it was perfectly centered under his navel. And then maybe ran his fingers through that hair longer than was absolutely necessary. (That just made Bucky flush worse, and chew on his bottom lip.) Took a special, perverted kind of enjoyment in doing it after he’d tumbled Bucky, knowing that he was a real mess under that pressed uniform, no matter how tidy he managed to look.

For whatever it mattered, Bucky still always tracked Rogers when they were in the same room, always moved to his right, in tight, on the missions and in briefings. Sometimes Howard wondered what would happen if he sidled up to Rogers and simpered that Bucky made _the best damned fondue_ this side of Bern.

Okay, he knew he’d get punched for that, and maybe not survive it.

It wasn’t like there were going to be any “happily ever afters” here. Howard could see the endgame, if everyone made it home, and, Christ, that was an “if” ...

Rogers and Carter: clapboard house, children who said “ma’am” and “sir,” taking cookies to the neighbors, church on Sundays. 

Bucky: playing the “uncle” who came over comfortably after church for dinner. Maybe with a woman of his own some day, or maybe not. Maybe he’d always track Rogers. Maybe Rogers would track him back. They all had their roles to play, after all. Some for the rest of their lives.

Hell, Howard understood his own obligations. Knew where his loyalties lay. Build on his father's estate, find a girl, mold the next generation of Starks ... There wasn't a whole lot of room in it for an ex-soldier from Brooklyn. But Bucky was his now, just for a bit, and he was worth enjoying for as long as they had.

Bucky let Howard fuck him again, that last night in 1945. Had scooted down to the edge of the bed, pulled his legs up to his chest, and let Howard rest his full weight on the back of those thighs as he went to town. Watched Bucky mouth the back of his own forearm to keep from making a single sound. If anyone had heard Howard’s grunts and exhales, they would have thought he was exercising. Or masturbating. Whatever. He wasn’t going to silence himself as painfully, not when he had so much to enjoy.

Watched Bucky's dick shoot over his own stomach as those internal muscles fluttered, clenching down on Howard. Jesus. Heaven. It was  _Heaven._  Bucky groaned low into his own skin and bit himself, then--hard--and the sight of that man straining to hide his pleasure even as his body shook through it sent Howard _over the goddamned moon._

He'd pulled out of Bucky after, climbed half on top of him to the head of the bed, and then reached his arms out, waving his hands in a come-hither of encouragement. Bucky just sat up, though, looked back once with half a smile, maybe a hint of bafflement. Instead of moving toward Howard, he stood. Howard couldn’t see his face then, but could hear the little noise of displeasure the motion caused. Knew what that felt like, and couldn’t smother down the grin enough even as he lowered his arms to the bed.

“Okay, there, Buck?” He propped himself up on his elbows to watch.

Got a glower in response as Bucky started picking through his clothes. Howard twitched cheerfully on the bed. “You know, you boys from Brooklyn are kind of fun,” he said to Bucky’s back. Kept it light, joking. Couldn’t help but admire the line of shoulder blade and spine that curved down to an ass that was too-rapidly being covered. Couldn’t help but ache at the loss when Bucky leaned low to grab his shirt.

Had no idea why he said the next: “They’re going to need me back home, soon. Probably flying out in a couple of weeks." Said a silent goodbye again to all that skin, even as his mouth kept forming words. "Maybe I’ll have to look you up when we’re both stateside.”

And that look that earned was just pure disbelief, which Howard figured it deserved. Yeah, they all had their roles to play. So Howard just shrugged and offered a lopsided grin as amends. Still, as ever, he stood at the end, naked as the day he was born, and went to straighten Bucky’s hair. Paused, just for a second, and then licked his palm and fingers carefully before using them to flatten that cowlick. Met Bucky's blue eyes, bright with pleasure and the incipient desire to tease, and Howard was ready enough to say goodbye to them, too, until the next time. Looked over Bucky's face as he was looked over in return, and Howard suddenly, really wanted to plant a kiss on that mouth.

Bucky was looking him up and down, now--humored, yes, and maybe still a little confused by whatever Howard was doing, and Howard looked at the knitted-together brows, the lines between them. And Howard thought about the endgame, both their endgames, and that … that was it. Moment passed.

That kind of kissing wasn’t for their kind of men.

Bucky fell the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who read [Legacy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1618295), yes, I self-inspired. Howard cleaning Bucky up, either to hide the evidence or for other reasons, is one of my current favorite headcanons.


	3. It's a Long Time Since I Drank Champagne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Few people knew that the search for Steve Rogers wasn’t the only one Howard undertook.

Rogers lasted just two days after losing Bucky. Howard didn’t get a chance to say much to him, in those hours in between. Didn’t _try_ to say much, really, around the shoulder-pat and “you hangin’ in there, Cap?” Steve nodded without turning around, and then he went back to speccing out the last HYDRA base. If he needed anything else, Carter handled it, and Steve kept going until he wouldn't anymore, and when Howard heard Rogers was going to ditch the plane …

He hadn’t been as surprised as he could have been. No, not surprised.  Maybe there was something to how necessary Bucky was, to Steve. How he needed to be tracked to stay safe. Howard had never gotten a bead on Rogers, and now there wasn't much of a point. 

Peggy held it together like a champ. He’d catch her, sitting at a desk in the corner, staring at some papers she obviously wasn’t reading, but he never saw a tear fall. Some kinda lady, and you couldn’t school these Brits about loss. Loss was something they understood only too keenly.

Sometimes, you just don’t get the kids, the clapboard house.

Sometimes you don’t go to church on Sundays.

Sometimes, you never go again.

The war ended not long after Rogers was lost, and then there was cleanup--recovery. Some people were good at that: getting the crops growing again, sending the veterans back into the factories and the women back into the kitchen. Splinting bones and plastering wounds.

Others excelled at different things. Refilling the armory. Showing your might.

Making sure it never happens to your boys again.

Howard had never been anything but the latter.

*******

Howard got asked about his search for the downed plane of Captain America up until the very end of his life.

Even the last interview he granted  _60 MInutes_ , when Stark Industries was working damage control in the middle of the Iran-Contra situation, Howard had faced Ed Bradley and known what was coming. Sure enough, in a tone that said he was sorry but was going to do it anyway, Ed asked: "So, Mister Stark. it's been over forty years since Captain Steve Rogers was lost in the Arctic Circle." That was one of the things that always gritted Howard's teeth--liberal journalists who thought they were too good to call him Captain America. He'd had to stop himself from writing letters to the Associated Press over the years. Their goddamned _style_ book could kiss his ass. "Senator Kelly's been calling for funding to begin a new recovery effort for Rogers' plane. What do you think about the possibility of yet another search?"

Howard blinked, shifted forward in his chair, and then back, and exhaled his answer: “I did as much as we were capable of doing at the time, Ed. As you know … as everyone knows, we never really knew where Steve Rogers--where Captain America had gone down. No one wanted to leave him out there,” and Howard had looked down, then, like he was actually thinking about the answer he had given a hundred times. A thousand. Like the answer ever changed, whether it was at a dining table, in the board room, or in an intentionally spare television studio sitting on an uncomfortable folding chair.

Looked back up, right at his interviewer and that damned camera over his shoulder. Saw the iris shift as it zoomed in. “Godspeed to Senator Kelly, and I understand his desire not to forget about Captain America's great sacrifice." Pointed, yes, but fuck them all. "After months went by, then years, with _nothing_ … I had to accept that he was going to rest in peace where he had fallen. Wherever he had fallen.” And words strong and final--ending this topic: “And that’s what he’s doing.”

(Tony had scoffed at him after, in one of the calls Howard was starting to dread--mocked his father for “milking the Captain America story for every last drop, Dad, like you get residuals from his estate,” and Howard closed the line without, for once, rising to the bait. There would always be a next time.)

Yeah, Howard knew: It made for a good story--his loyalty to one of the lost symbols of American idealism, American ingenuity. A real hero and a good man. Howard would scan the magazines and newspapers late at night, after everyone else was in bed, and over the years he would chuckle bitterly over how the story shifted depending on the age.

In the nineteen-fifties, it had been a facet of the bigger post-war story--how Howard made his real fortune developing weapons reserves to defend the country’s good men, men who shared the grit of Steve Rogers, even without the heroic profile. Howard Stark became his own brand of American hero, industry leader, strategic thinker, protector of our boys across the water.

In the sixties, as kids were braiding flowers in each others’ hair and drawing upside-down chicken feet on poster board, the story was held up as a frontline defense of Howard’s humanity when plenty of people were screaming and picketing about his warmongering. When Howard became “the Man.”

(It struck Howard as funny on his better days--he’d grown up wanting nothing more than to be a man, and now it was thrown around as an insult. But it just went to show, the times, as the disrespectful little jerks in front of SI headquarters liked to chant, they were a-changin’.)

The seventies? Blessed with Tony, the only surviving result of many years of hoping and tears, and the baby kept Maria mercifully busy while Howard worked, as he served up the century's finest Stark Expo to a country that still despised him at times. No, it was definitely not a good time to be a Republican, even if he was sure some of the same youngsters that had picketed headquarters a few years before had finally scrubbed the paint off their faces and were pushing their own baby carriages around the City of the Future. Having Tony shifted Howard’s focus to the long-term, and there were always new markets willing to buy Stark products, especially from a respectable man with a charming, intelligent wife and young son. A man who had proven his loyalty early in life.

The seventies may not have been a great time to be a Republican, but it was a fine time to be a Stark.

And the eighties. Well. In the eighties, the so-called dawn of America, Reagan mentioned Howard Stark and Steve Rogers in both inauguration speeches … and there was a reason Springsteen included a lyric about “cold, stark dreams” in _Born in the USA_. (That may have been the last time Tony was impressed by any of Howard's accomplishments, and it wore off quickly.)

Additional details would have screwed up the narratives, made the story messy, and nobody liked a messy story. So he kept the story neat: a grim man on a boat, turning up nothing as Captain America rested in his hidden grave.

But very few knew that the search for Steve Rogers wasn’t the only one Howard Stark undertook when he was young and hollowed-out. Because Rogers, after all, wasn’t the only one who had been lost. So, while boats struggled through the Arctic ice, their crew members dutifully staring at radar while cursing Howard’s name, another set of men and boys were climbing through a thawing valley under a train trestle.

It took hundreds of misidentified animal bones before one exhausted searcher, fur-lined hood raised and slush melting from his boots, turned up human remains. A few bones from one hand, and picked clean by whatever lived down there. Howard stared at the jointed bones on the steel medical tray, tunnel-visioned through the squirming and shifting and hopeful coughs of the other men in the room.

The bone was white-gray and curled into itself, and Howard wouldn’t allow himself to look away.

“Are you sure?” His voice echoed in his own ears.

As the doctor started speaking (“They're human bones, sir--that much is certain. The trajectory of the fall ... “), he was cut off by another of the searchers. “We found this with it,” and it was a piece of sleeve, browned with dried blood, and an insignia on the arm--

Howard hadn’t heard whatever else the doctor said. "And that’s all--” Howard had swallowed, and blinked a few times, and what few of the men shared this story to their wives, neighbors, children … they always included Howard’s pause, and they all could describe the look on his face to the end of their lives. “That’s all that’s left,” he finished, hoarse, and it was not a question.

The animals had taken the rest.

When no one spoke, Howard took a step back, finally, and clapped his hands together to end it. “Yes, fine. Okay.” He still didn’t meet the eyes of any of the other men--the doctor, the head of the search team, the tired man who’d found the relic and was waiting around to be paid and finally sent home.

To his assistant, a young kid who obviously already knew he was in over his head, Howard said, “Box it up. I want it sent back to New York.” Jerked his head at the others in acknowledgment. “You can go. We’ll take care of it. ... Him.”

He hadn’t sworn any of the men to secrecy--hadn’t made them sign anything or issued any warnings. It didn’t occur to Howard, truthfully, when he was that young and still thought most people were worth a damn. As it was, he really didn’t have to, because years of Arctic searches by radar for the lost plane of Captain America would always be more interesting. 

So, although some told the story to wives, to neighbors, to children, it never went much further.

In the end, none of them knew the final detail: Howard took what was left of James Buchanan Barnes home. Buried it quietly in the Stark family plot, under a marker with only initials and year of death. He touched the headstone whenever he laid flowers at his mother’s grave and was sure to call him by name.

*******

The book came out on the ten-year anniversary of the loss of Captain America. It was displayed on bookstore tables in a nest of all the other books about the anniversary, about Steve Rogers. Surrounded by an explosion of red, white, and blue, it stood out--a simple dark cover, a black and white photo with silver lettering.

 _Right Hand: The Story of James Buchanan Barnes, the Other Lost Commando_. Barnes was the perfect, handsome soldier on the cover: rifle in his arm, buttoned into his coat, gaze aimed somewhere in the distance.

Readers might have expected tales of heroism on the battlefield, the courage of a man willing to follow Captain Steve Rogers into the worst of the short-lived Nazi Empire (HYDRA and Red Skull having been omitted from the news reports--as far as the public knew, Steve Rogers willingly downed a plane with a nuke).

They got that and more. In three hundred and fifty pages, the writer took a little-remembered example of the war dead and blew him up, larger than life. Found details of his childhood--pranks played, fights started. Fights ended. Siblings he had left behind. Read about the day Barnes met Rogers and how it changed his life course. Discovered that he had enlisted out of duty, but not just duty to country--duty to his younger friend who wasn’t able to fight himself.

It hit a chord, the loss of this young man who represented the future America could have had, who was mostly forgotten in the short decade since the end of the war (the way so many had already been forgotten). Who deserved better than what he got (also like so many). That he was Steve Rogers' best friend was incidental--Barnes was the soldier any of them could have been, and some of them were.

By the last page, he was no longer James Barnes. He had become Bucky.

The publisher wasn’t able to provide the author for interviews. The manuscript was submitted by an individual, yes, but on condition of anonymity and use of an obvious pen name, and, aside from thorough fact-checking of what facts could be checked, there was no one to corroborate the narrative.

 _The New York Times_ bestsellers list suggested this wasn’t a conflict for American readers, flush in the middle of the post-war dream and wanting another, and another, and _another_ look back into those glory days.

When a reporter noted that the publishing company was majority-owned by Howard Stark, _that_ fact was commented on just briefly in a smattering of articles covering the book’s third printing. Of course Howard had chivvied through the manuscript; look at everything he’d done for Captain America, after all. And look at what Bucky Barnes was to Captain America.

What he was to  _America._

Six months after the book was released, a toy company began selling a series of stuffed animals. They were unbranded, unauthorized, but anyone who saw the set together on a shelf knew exactly what was going on: “Captain,” with a red, white, and blue circle on his chest. “Dougie,” with the hat. All priced the same, but, for whatever reason--the expression on the bear’s face, the comforting brownish-red hue of the fur, and maybe, yes, the book--the “Bucky” bear sold the quickest.

When the company that put them out--some little family-owned business in Minnesota, where Grandma sewed on the tags, if one believed the magazines--couldn’t keep up with the inventory demands, they suddenly found themselves bankrolled by an anonymous investor. The Bucky bears stayed on the shelves for a half-dozen or eight years, and every kid born in the fifties with two nickels to scratch together had one.

(Tony, age five, asked for the twenty-year-old, dusty bear when he discovered it on a shelf in Howard’s closet. After delivering a lecture on not touching any of those things, Howard pushed him out of the room and moved his artifacts to a less-accessible location.)

When Maria had asked Howard, early in their courtship, to tell her stories about the war--about Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos--he had looked at her sweet face as he decided what he would tell. It had only been a few months, but he already knew she was it, or as close to it as a man like him would find, and he’d already sent one of his assistants to look for a ring.

She was young, yeah--had barely been a teenager when Howard was in the European theatre, and, as the second daughter of an affluent family, her experience with the war had gone no further than cinema newsreels and tending a symbolic victory garden.

No--there was only so much she needed to know. So he obfuscated with what she wanted to hear, instead--the first iteration of the hovering car. (He loved her laugh when he described its rough landing.) The transformation of Steve Rogers (and she'd giggled when he'd described just how many hands had reached for that chest). The power and efficiency with which the Commandos took out the enemy bases, one by one. Bullets and bombs and bad guys, all suited to impress. By the time he was done--and it had been a performance, because Howard knew how to give those--her head had been resting on his shoulder, her hand had been in his, and if he was staring somewhere into the distance thinking of those who had fallen, well, she was bright enough not to comment on it.

They were married four months later.

Early in the marriage, when they were just starting to get comfortable with each other, she remarked that she found it odd how little Howard was mentioned in _Right Hand_. Howard had just looked up from his papers and shrugged. Offered her a thin smile that he hoped looked discouraging.

“I suppose there wasn’t much to say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record: I loved Ed Bradley.


	4. You're Up and You're Over and You're Far Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard learns about the Winter Soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : This chapter includes brief, undetailed descriptions of prisoner torture.

He didn’t dream of Steve Rogers. Maybe there were too many reminders of him--every flag he saw, the bunting on the Fourth of July, all the damned interviews. He talked about Captain America during the day, and the ghost left him at peace at night.

But, oh, he saw Bucky. More often in those years immediately following the war and then the book, sure, when Bucky was still a taste in his mouth, a thick sweat smell in his nose. Before the memories had faded into the poses from old photos and a sense of something missing.

Even years later, though, when Howard was middle-aged--when he was old--Bucky would still turn up, buttoned tight into that blue coat or opened up to his slick, bare skin. Hair mussed or palm-swiped back into place. Even on nights after Maria would turn to Howard in their bed, say his name and wrap herself around him, there was a risk that Bucky would appear in the dark like he'd just come back from a mission, with no more noble purpose than to lure Howard into a rough, laughing tumble.

Like he knew what Howard had been up to and couldn’t help but give him guff about it.

No matter the time passed, his eyes were always bright blue and teasing, the cold winter sun was always glinting off that brown-red hair. His pink swell of a mouth still looked like it was ready to give Howard hell, ready to kiss him, ready to do all the things that God had invented and named sin after.

It always ended before anyone really got lucky, before Howard had the chance to touch outside and in, because wasn’t that the way of things.

_Wasn’t that the way._

Some people claimed to have lucid dreams. Say they knew in the depth of their sleep that they were dreaming and do whatever they wanted as a result, free of the constraints of the daylight, the shame of being seen. He couldn’t say if he envied them or not. On the rare day, after too much scotch, when Bucky hadn’t visited him in awhile and he kind of missed it, Howard would allow himself to wonder what he would say to him--or to Steve--if given the chance again. If he woke up and one of them was right there.

A stupid train of thought, useless, but an old man was allowed a little maudlin sentiment when the rest of the house was asleep, was allowed to savor his memories, count his losses, and scourge himself for all his mistakes.

Sometimes that was all that old men ever did.

*******

Anton was muttering to himself again, still angry at the response the delegation had given their demonstration earlier that day. Hell, if Howard could package disdain and sell it, he’d make another million off those people, easy.

He and Anton--their work--had been _dismissed._

So, the prototype was a little underdeveloped, yes, and Howard knew Anton was blaming him for it. For not being committed enough lately. It’s not like Howard could dispute it--the last few months had been one blasted houseguest after another, sometimes in groups, all eager to get their hands on _the baby._ Fawning over Maria like she was the first woman they knew to give birth. He’d missed a lot of hours, logged too much time driving back and forth between the lab and the house, all because of a damned--

Howard leaned against the table and took a deep breath, giving himself a minute before getting back on task. Anton wasn’t paying attention--just complaining to himself in Russian, like he’d been doing off and on for an hour while he’d transcribed figures from the demo. Howard had to--had to shake his irritation, with Anton, yes, but also with Maria and all the godforsaken people flowing in and out of the house.

He was ready to get back to work. Real work. Maria could see through him when he got antsy, told him she wanted him to go back to the reactor prototype, but between her slow recovery, the baby’s constant crying, and all the interruptions--

Ah, the demonstration had been shit, if Howard was going to be honest with himself. He knew he had screwed over Anton a little with his lack of focus, and knew Anton wasn’t ... wasn’t altogether understanding. Could see it in the pinched-together mouth when Howard returned after an obligatory “family luncheon,” or after the baby needed one more thing despite the fact that a third of the house had been taken over by his things. Toys, diapers, the crib pulled near their bed, on Maria’s side, so they could be woken up at each and every sound.

Anton had his own son, and most of his stories over the last months had been crafted to show how easy Ivan was, even when the child had been a newborn. He practically beamed with pride at Ivan’s school accomplishments, and Howard feigned interest just to maintain the peace.

Anton’s boasts were more than an irritant now. Tony … wasn’t _easy._ Hadn’t been easy to get and sure as hell wasn’t easy to have now that he was here. Had made Howard’s life messy, and he was ready to make it neat again. Howard had done his part, given Maria and now Tony a comfortable home and life, and now Maria needed to do hers and keep Tony out of the way until he could be useful.

The muttering caught his attention again. Howard never had a gift for languages, but you didn’t spend as much time with a Ruskie without picking up a few words. Swears, yes, but also--when it was Vanko--tactical words and phrases.

He took a deep breath and put Maria and Tony out of his head again. Tried for a little lightheartedness. “What are you going on about over there, Anton?” Howard had recognized the word “soldier,” but wanted to know if Anton was going to tell him the whole truth this time. Sometimes Anton’s translations didn’t quite match up to Howard’s understanding.

“Just a--” That struggle for words didn’t always seem sincere, either, but he pressed on. “Just something I heard. It is ... ‘Winter Soldier.’ It is a … saying. Something I heard from my professors at university.” And that was almost always coded for high-ranking KGB, who had been very interested in Vanko before they let him come to Howard’s lab.

At Howard’s face, he continued, “Like a--uh, what do you call it? Like a _boogeyman._ He--uh ... takes care of things. Problems. Makes things go away.” Anton shrugged, and there was something in that crooked smile that gave Howard chills. “Something we could use about now, right, Howard?” he finished, waving loosely around the mess of the lab.

What the hell kind of crazy Russian crap was Anton talking about? Half of Vanko’s ramblings sounded like threats, but wedded to those broad grins that never totally dispelled the effect.

To hell with it--they had work to do. Back on track. “Yeah, well--I know enough about your kind of winters. Pretty easy to believe, I guess.” Just placate and keep Vanko busy until the next milestone. He grabbed a spanner from the tool array. “Let’s adjust the angle of deflection to the new specifications and see if we can squeeze some good out of that, at least.”

And that was enough to quiet Anton down for the day. And Howard didn’t think on the Anton’s mutterings about the Winter Soldier until much later, when he started to hear the name again.

*******

For what it was worth, SHIELD still called on Howard all the damned time, long after he gave them--tried to give them--the proverbial bird. The call would come, and he’d tell his secretary to give them some bullshit, and he’d tell Maria to tear up the messages, but they always had a damned way of finding him and reeling him back in.

It was on one of the consulting visits in the late seventies when his attention was caught by young agents whispering in groups. Fine, yes, the sight made Howard a little nostalgic. It didn’t take much to get newer ones worked up about something, and, as Peggy walked him through the halls, he stepped closer to her so he wouldn’t be overheard.

“What’s got the kiddies stirred up now?” He hiked a thumb behind them as they walked.

The clicking of her heels didn’t pause. “Hot new assassin, or so goes the rumor.” She rolled her eyes a little. “Took out an envoy to tomorrow’s summit. No witnesses, but it was a locked-room scenario, so the recruits are atwitter. They're _excited_.”

Peggy was about the only thing Howard missed about this whole setup. A face that always seemed genuinely pleased to see him, even when the shit was hitting the fan. ( _Especially_ when.) He still loved how she sounded when she got fed up. “So, who really did it? Any ideas?”

“We’re investigating,” she said crisply, back to business with a glint in her eye. “But ‘still being investigated’ isn’t nearly as titillating as the gossip that’s been picked up over the network.”

Yes, she still liked to tease him, even after thirty years of seeing each other at their worst. “Come on, Peg--quit playing hard to get.”

She snorted, and gave him a glare, and it was saying something that she still looked like she could wipe the sidewalk with him. Which was another thing that hadn’t changed in thirty years. She relented, though: “Some of our Soviet sources have been picked up referring to the ‘Winter Soldier.’” Her face flickered at something on his. She spoke again immediately, but her tone was hesitant. “Evocative ... isn’t it?”

They were at her office by then, and she needled him by holding the door open and waiting for him to walk through. But instead of giving her hell, he just stepped past with a “yeah.”

Still too smart by half not to put something together, though. “Howard?” she prodded. “What is it?” And too dogged not to pull that thread. Which was why she still was the _de facto_ boss of this joint after three decades and several men who tried to give her orders.

“Just a phrase I’ve heard before.” He turned back to her. “Vanko.” It was awkward--the whole thing had been a huge embarrassment the year before, and he was still getting hell from the board for it. Hell, Obi was still patting him on the back like an asshole and saying, “Howard, Howard, _Howard_.”

Peggy had more class than that. She just hummed. “It would be common enough, I suppose. Apparently, this one, if he is actually an individual and it’s not just a ‘scare the piss out of the West’ boogeyman”--and that jolted Howard a bit, too--”would have been active for some time.” She settled herself into the chair behind the desk, and Howard moved to the bar to pour them both drinks.

“We’re on it, Howard,” she added, and reached for a file on her desk marked FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Yeah, that was the “this conversation is over’ signal. “Before we start, though--how’s the family?” Her mouth turned up a little even as she thumbed open the folder. Niceties, but she actually meant them. 

Howard knew she would have read the _Vanity Fair_ profile on Maria’s charity work, with the sidebar about Tony’s tinkering. Not much more to say than that. “Fine, fine. You?”

Peggy mercifully had only so much interest in discussing her daughter’s graduate-school plans, and they got down to business not long after. After all, those gossipy kids down the hall needed someone to look after their backs.

*******

_“--ter Soldier ... “_

Howard had heard the term more in the last near-decade, but it was the first time it had been more than a sidebar to be briefly considered and then discarded. Now it was being forced out of someone under torture for the first time--at least as far as Howard knew.

He grimaced at the scene through the one-way glass. This scenario, the ruin of the man strapped to the table on the other side, was one of the reasons Howard kept trying to cut his final ties to SHIELD; he could only stomach so much more of this. Even when it, as he’d been constantly assured, had to be done.

“Protect our boys,” and all that. They knew how to appeal to Howard’s reputation. To his ego.

He was just getting tired of seeing all the damned blood.

In the faint reflection of his own image and the room behind him, Howard caught the other men giving each other glances, shrugging. One took notes. The widespread belief among SHIELD leadership held firm: that the Winter Soldier was an amalgam of assassins, that there was no true Soldier, just a rumor meant to cow the Americans with an idea of a _(boogeyman)_ single unstoppable killer who could take anyone out at any time.

And then--

It was late in the interrogation, and, after all the “persuasive techniques,” they were no longer getting anything useful from the subject. Just a few more words gasped and spit as he was worked over, as Howard listened from the other side of the glass with his hands in fists at his side.

“The Winter Soldier … will come for you. Will come for you all. The best of the commandos, he is. Some say ... some say they can hear him … howling--”

And then the man just laughed and then screamed through a few last tears.

*******

_Coincidence,_ Howard thought later that night, that week, the next year.

_Impossibility._

There was no real Winter Soldier. That remained the conclusion of SHIELD leadership and their finest experts. When he’d started to fit the pieces together in front of Peggy once at the end of one of their visits, when he’d been loosened up by a few glasses of bourbon, the gray-white clench of her expression held him back. And that was just at the mention of Steve’s name, of the fate of the plane.

But--

_Howling._

_Commando._

There were only two of them who hadn’t made it home alive. Just Steve and Bucky.

Howard … Howard knew about Bucky. Steve had watched Bucky fall, and Howard had brought those small bones home and made a place for them.

But Steve’s death had no witnesses. No remains. No one knew for sure what had happened to him--just a radio signal cutting out and a profound and certain grief settling over the base. A certain grief when there were really no certainties at all.

God, Howard had looked for so _long._ A lifetime of boats and grids and radar, hearing his name cursed quietly by the same men he was paying, until one, then another, then another mission was called off.

Steve would be … If Steve were still alive, he was still Howard’s age, and in no position to be making the hits ascribed to Anton’s boogeyman. But nobody really knew what Erskine’s formula would do to Steve’s longevity--no one had asked about the long-term effects of superhealing, and if Howard could dream of a man who was certain to long outlive everyone he knew--

It would have sounded like a nightmare.

No, he didn’t ask, and he was pretty sure Erskine hadn’t prepared Steve Rogers for the possibility in the _goddamned five minutes_ they’d allowed between explaining the transformation and pushing him into Howard’s machine.

Vita-Rays. What in the _hell_ had he been thinking?!

Howard thought of the patterns--one killing, then another or two more, and then silence for years. No one taking any credit. The Soldier would go dormant for so long that new groups of SHIELD recruits would be told of him only in ghost stories. A new generation of agents to whom he truly became a ghost, a nervous laugh.

But what if.

Imagine a soldier--a single soldier fearsome and foolhardy and superhuman, taken and turned and trained. Given a new mission.

What if.

What if the Russians had succeeded where Howard had failed? What if they had found Captain America?

What would it take to break a good man?


	5. All That You're Loved Is All You Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Howard honors Bucky Barnes until the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There is a canon character death in this, the obvious one, which may be a little hard to read. **Look at the end notes** if you're concerned.

Thanksgiving break, when he was sixteen, Tony had come home from MIT grudgingly and spoiling for a fight.

It was funny, Howard mused later. He made himself easy enough to avoid, always had, just seeking Tony out over report cards and trouble at school, times when expensive things got broken--and they got broken a lot, and Tony had stopped lying about them a long time ago. But Tony--when Tony was like this, a minute away from going off, he always sought Howard out.

Howard hardly knew what the complaint was this time--someone being more interested in Tony’s parentage than Tony himself, an article in the paper that dared to be about Howard’s latest business dealings. Just Howard breathing the wrong way, apparently.

Maybe just Howard _breathing,_ period.

It was an irritant, was what it was. Howard ignored it--learned years before that letting Tony blow through these childish rages was more productive than actually engaging him, so he answered in one word or two, quiet and absent, while he continued to flip through the papers on his desk. SHIELD files, SSR files, every crumb he had scraped together about the Winter Sol--

Tony’s voice cut in, almost out of nowhere. “--and your twisted, embarrassing little fetish for _Captain America_ and his _adorable_ sidekick Bucky Barnes--”

Howard was out of his chair before Tony managed another ugly word.

After, Howard didn’t remember exactly what he’d said. What he’d--okay, what he’d screamed to get Tony to _shut the hell up_. To _stop goddamned talking._ He was standing beside his desk, and the files he’d been reading were spilled upside down on the floor.

He was still trying to catch his breath.

The room echoed with the memories of a few words he did remember, spilled out from a dark part of his mind.

_“--no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work at it, you won’t be half the man they were--”_

_“--nothing but a disappointment from your first goddamned breath--”_

_“--worst fucking thing I ever made--”_

Not for the first time, Howard thought it was a damned shame Tony looked so much like him and almost nothing like his mother. He knew what Tony’s expression meant, eyes huge and mouth slack, knew what he'd felt when he looked like that, and he was going to be paying for this lapse for a long time ...

Another regret, waiting to scourge him. Lined up right behind his furious son.

But Tony just inhaled, swallowed, and blinked a few times. Said quietly, but with a razor-sharp undercurrent, “Well, Dad." Another breath, and when he spoke again, his voice broke a little. "Thanks for finally confirming what I’ve always known.” He moved toward the door, and Howard tried to think of something else to say. Something to undo the last few minutes. But that was when his words chose to fail him.

And what the hell was there to say after sixteen years of this.

Tony stopped on the way out, back to Howard by this point. “You did, as you put it, ‘make’ me, so ... I guess ... if I’m half the man they were, then I guess we know what that says about you. Huh? Dad?” He hadn't even bothered to turn around.

“Tony,” Howard tried, voice hoarsened. But his son was already gone with a quiet click of the door.

Tony had left the house that night, spent Thanksgiving Day God knows where. Sued for emancipation on Black Friday, thanks to a lawyer so intrigued by the possibility of Stark money he gave up his holiday weekend. Howard read the first paragraph of the papers and couldn’t stop laughing. Literally couldn’t stop, until he was out of breath with tears in the corners of his eyes, sitting on the main stairs near the front door.

This … this was what it came to, then. You have a kid and you give them _everything_ , and--

When Maria found him, when she saw the paper in his hand, she didn’t yell or try to shame him. Could have, and would have found a willing target. Instead, she slid onto the step next to him, rested her chin on his shoulder, and reached for his hand. Sighed a little in the long-suffering way of women who had been burdened with Stark men.

With her intervention, after a single long phone call to Tony, the suit went away.

Tony never sought Howard out, after that.

*******

_December 16, 1991_

SHIELD got a hold of him the day before he headed home.

He’d taken the call in his hotel room after the last meeting, when the disappointment was still fresh and hadn’t yet been catalogued as just another low point in the long, frustrating effort. It was the new director himself on the call, which got Howard’s attention. Glad he still merited the consideration, but he’d never known this guy well, barely remembered his name. Peggy didn’t think much of him, which was all he needed to know.

He started with, “I hope your trip has been productive, Howard?”

The false-friendly tone bounced off the walls of the office. Speakerphone. Great. “Who else is there with you?” Yeah, Howard would ask that question, even if he couldn’t be assured of an honest answer.

“Just Fury and Pierce.” Heard the two other men grunt their hellos. “We were hoping to talk to you about the purpose of your trip. Howard,” and he we go, he thought. “We understand you’ve been asking some questions about the Winter Soldier legend. Someone you talked to liked to talk himself. What’s that about, Howard?”

In the silence before his reply, he heard Nick speaking quietly, asking a question. Heard Pierce respond, also low, and something about “rumors” and, yes, “ghost.”

“Too many rumors, Alexander,” Howard snapped. “There’s gotta be more to it than propaganda.”

More voices on the other end, then a reluctant sort of silence, and Howard could just picture how the new director--and Howard would remember his name, just in a second--was gesturing at the other two. Mollifying, or maybe even mocking the obsessions of an old man. This was why Howard had kept the other part of his suspicions to himself--couldn’t risk getting cut off if they started to doubt Howard Stark’s mind. Focused on the Winter Soldier, yes, but tracking the Soldier’s identity? Peaks and valleys of doubting, and believing, and hoping to God he wasn’t right? He kept those to himself.

The director’s tone was still perfectly pleasant when he continued, “SHIELD has been tracking mentions of the Soldier as far back as '68, Howard,” and, hell--that long? He wondered about the first target ascribed to the ghost--

Oh. Oh, God. _Sixty-eight._ And two years before Vanko had grumbled those words across the room. He'd been active earlier than anyone had suspected.

“--and there is nothing to them," the man continued. " _Nothing_. Someone taking out targets like that for over twenty years? Still doing them? No, Howard, it isn’t _one man_. There is no Winter Soldier.”

“But--”

“Howard,” and the director was saying his name far too often for his liking. “We appreciate your commitment, what you’re trying to do. But--”

_You’re old. You’re losing it. You’re no longer useful._

“May I, sir?” and that was Pierce again, speaking to Howard this time. “Mr. Stark, we take your contributions very seriously around here, as you know.” And Pierce’s voice grew louder as he moved closer to the phone. “If there’s any truth to your suspicions about the Winter Soldier, you can be assured that we will do what needs to be done to stop them.”

The call ended soon after. SHIELD didn’t ask him to come in. Didn’t ask to debrief him after his trip. Howard’s hand lingered on the phone headset.

Almost fifty years of service, and that, as they say, was that.

*******

_December 17, 1991_

The limo zipped around the curve, and the overturned tree trunk was _right there._ No time to stop--no room to swerve. A steep hill covered in thick trees hemmed them in on one side, and the other had enough of a dropoff that--

They didn’t have a chance.

The limo hit it dead on, and Howard heard the driver grunt just as Maria shrieked in his ear.

The limo flipped down the hill, landed on its top in a little stream, and slowly rocked, back and forth, to a halt. A door had been bashed in. A turn signal was locked on, and Howard could hear the click-click-click sounding all through the cabin. The driver was frozen in the front seat, held in place by his seatbelt. Dead, or close enough to it.

Howard and Maria, unrestrained, had been thrown around the back of the car until it landed. Bones broken, any number of wounds capable of killing with enough time. Broken glass letting in the cold and dribbles of water from the stream, their blood mingling and staining the water.

Oh, God, this was no ... no good. Howard whispered Maria’s name through failing breath once, then again. She was crumpled, turned away from him, and he wasn’t sure he could see her moving. Couldn’t see her breathe. There was a lot of blood. He dragged his arm toward her, tried to touch, and the fear suddenly caught up to him in the weakening pound of his heartbeat.

Maria was ... gone, maybe, and the driver was dead, and Howard was bleeding out here, on the ceiling of a limo. He still wasn’t sure--wasn’t sure what had happened, how the tree had fallen straight across the road where it narrowed, just where it would do the most harm, around a bend and unseen from any vantage point.

They were in the middle of nowhere, Howard's quiet, private land, where no one would pass for a day, for days if Tony didn’t come.

… _Oh._

Oh. It wasn’t an accident.

That last call, this last trip. He’d gotten too much attention and … he’d been right. Howard had been right. Oh, _God,_ Tony would have enjoyed that one.

The last moments of Howard’s life passed in a series of revelations, after the first.

He’d loved Maria fully, and he couldn’t believe she had kept loving him through all the days he’d hardly been worth it. She'd deserved better, but she'd gotten a Stark. 

Tony ... God, _Tony._ Howard could have been a better father, but ... what man couldn’t? If Howard had made things tough on Tony … Tony would need to be tough, now. Tony would have to be strong during the days ahead.

Still, he wished, maybe, that he’d gotten a chance to talk to him one more time. Maybe … maybe tried to explain some things. Hoped that Tony would put together the pieces anyway.

It was getting harder to breathe, and Howard couldn’t move his arm anymore. He turned his head away from where Maria was … already gone, and toward the broken-out window.

There was a man, sitting on the grass nearby.

But he wasn’t there to help. His uniform was dark and brutal and terrifying, and he wore a mask to cover the bottom half of his face. Sitting there to watch, to ensure nothing was left to chance, to create an accident and then make sure it continued to look like one. The sun came out from behind a cloud, and there was a flare, and his arm … he had an arm sheathed entirely in metal, or crafted entirely of metal, with a red star …

A red star. Soviet. _The Soldier._

Oh, God, _his arm._

It wasn’t Steve Rogers, no. And the sun off that brown-red hair, those blue eyes watching him calmly over the mask--they reminded Howard of loss. He said a name, just one. And the man frowned with a line between his brows, shook his head a little as if to clear it, and he reached up to pull off that mask--

Howard had given up on God when he’d come home from the war. Didn’t believe in the afterlife, or heaven. Absolution or ghosts. No, this wasn’t a ghost. And he wasn’t a dream. And pieces slid together, filling in the places left blank by Steve Rogers’ story.

What Zola had done in that room, on that table, to one soldier. What Zola had made.

His thoughts were starting to fragment, their cohesion lost to a last rush of emotion. Once, a long time ago, when Howard was young, he’d lost Bucky Barnes, and he’d mourned, always secretly, always silently. Honored the memory and hoped the man had been at peace, whatever that meant.

Knew that what he saw now, in his man who only looked at him curiously, who waited for him to die, wasn’t peace.

There was no more time for Howard. Maybe there was no more time for the one who had become the Winter Soldier. But for the sake of Bucky, lost a lifetime ago, Howard hoped there would be peace still to come.

Hoped their kind of men deserved that, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go!
> 
> Warning note: The last part, when they're back in the limo, describes Howard's dying moments.


	6. Gonna Take It with Me When I Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick Fury tells Steve a story.

_Today_

Steve was silent. His chest felt heavy, throat constricted. But he would choke it down. Was pretty sure he hadn’t been recognized in this restaurant, not yet, but knew it wouldn’t be good for Captain America to be caught tearing up in public again. “Makes people nervous,” Tony had teased after a particularly horrific press conference, in a tone not intentionally unkind.

Across the table, in his own booth seat, Nick was watching Steve through opaque sunglasses. They were in a diner in Ohio, tiny little place outside Columbus where Nick had tracked a handful of loyal agents who had gone into hiding after the HYDRA implosion. The agents were safely on their way to Coulson, and Nick was tidying things up before disappearing back into the hunt.

Steve was holding the hardcover in his hand, the a water-stained biography smelling of a dozen used bookstores. The book had gone out of print a couple of decades after it was first published, but copies still floated around and were easy enough to find if you were a graduate student, a World War II buff, or the former director of SHIELD. Nick had tugged the book from his knapsack when he’d gotten to that point in the story, and Steve in the last half-hour had left a smattering of nail impressions through the paper jacket and into the cardboard cover.

Nick had related the facts over pie and coffee--everything SHIELD had known officially before, as well as what he had discovered in the last months, in mold-filled bunkers, offshore servers, and bland little office buildings. He was still tapping the tines of his fork on the scraped-clean porcelain as Steve passed the book back and forth between his hands. Worried at a fold of paper with his thumb. Wanting to open it, and also wanting to go back in time an hour, a day, and tell Nick to leave the dead buried.

Too late now.

Steve finally spoke. “Do you think--” Frowned, and couldn’t put together the rest of the words. Set the book down on the tabletop, but bracketed it carefully between his elbows.

Hazarded a look, and--yeah, Steve was long used to the put-upon expression Nick seemed to wear whenever he--whenever any of them were around. Like they were a bunch of children that existed mainly to test him.

The inevitable sigh was harsh. “If you’re asking me, ‘Do you think Barnes knows--does he remember?’ ... yeah, that is outside my area of expertise. It’s pretty much outside the area of expertise of anyone who isn’t already dead.” Nick dropped the fork to the plate with a clatter, and the waitress, who clearly had been waiting for the opportunity in this near-empty restaurant, swooped in to clear it away.

He shook his head at the offer of more coffee. Waited for her to retreat and for Steve to look back up from under the brim of his hat. Continued, “But if you’re asking me, do I think I was a dumbass for not listening to Howard, I think I can answer that with reasonable assurance. Even if … Because … God, _especially_ because there were forces at play that led to that conclusion.” Clenched a fist on the table. “Because those forces manipulated me for decades.”

Nick paused. Took a breath. Knocked the tabletop with his fist in a rhythmic emphasis of words. “But. If you’re asking me if my part in not preventing the murder of SHIELD’s founder and Tony Stark’s father will give me a few sleepless nights over the rest of my life? _That_ is a question I can definitively answer.”

The laugh that followed was rough and tired. Angry.

Steve thought of Bucky, and what those decades of Howard’s life had been for him … and then thought of Tony’s words and tried to maintain his expression. Just two old buddies, meeting in a diner. He glanced down at the cover again and blinked a little longer than normal, because he would not allow tears to fall. He’d have time for that later.

Steve reached for the straw in his iced tea and made a show of swirling it. Cleared his throat. Looked up finally. “I guess I’m asking--sir ...” Wished Nick would take the sunglasses off--one clear eye was better than the mirrors that reflected Steve’s own face. “Are you sure that’s what got Howard killed?”

No--that laugh was bitter. Jesus. “And here I thought you were done asking the stupid questions, Rogers,” Nick said.

That surprised a laugh out of Steve. “Yeah, okay.” And the what-ifs were going to kill him, later--what if Howard had been more sure. What if he had convinced someone--anyone. Could they have spared Bucky years of suffering?

Could they have spared Tony the same?

Howard--

Howard would almost certainly be gone by now, lost to age, but maybe he and Tony could have finally come to some kind of understanding. And maybe Tony would’ve been a different man. But would that be better? Or worse? What would Tony Stark’s happiness, his contentment, mean to the world? Less or more than his anger, his bursts of self-loathing, his need to be that much better than Howard Stark?

If Bucky had lived his whole life, he would’ve been gone by now, too. Should’ve died, like Steve should have under the ice seventy years earlier. To be mourned first by Howard, and then, for at least another lifetime, by Steve. A baton passed from one man to the next. He looked down at the cover of the book, Bucky alone, in his uniform. Young and whole.

Oh, God.

_Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda._

Steve was getting downright exhausted with trying to follow the threads of fate. Because no matter how much he hoped, no matter how many times he rewrote the story … There was absolutely nothing to be done about it now. Time, inasmuch as it had played fast and loose with Steve’s life, with Bucky’s … Time only ran in one direction.

Nothing to be done, except go home.

So he did.

*******

Steve took his time getting there. Accepted Tony’s offer of a private plane, but, once he’d landed, made his way slowly through the city as he thought about the photos in the book, the chapters he’d paged through on the flight. Nothing--nothing he didn’t know, but the language, the tone rang familiar in his mind. That voice still sneaked its way through Steve’s memories and the strikingly similar patter of Howard’s son.

If the rumors around SHIELD had been true, at least one epithet had been left off Howard’s obituary. What was it Tony had said, describing himself in those words that could capture his father as well: genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. _Author._

Pulled the bike into the garage, propped it up on the kickstand, stood and stared at the elevator doors for a minute before he pressed the button.

Rode up to his floor.

Steve didn’t see Bucky at first--never did, as he always settled into one spot invisible from both the entry door and floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the far side of the main room. He’d made a little nook between the end of the sofa and the corner of the wall, a place that was well-lit and apparently comfortable. Steve moved further into the room and took it in: Bucky was sitting cross-legged, curled over himself a little, and turning the pages of a dog-eared paperback Tony had provided. This week it was _The World According to Garp_ , and Steve had a suspicion Tony was picking the books on purpose, for some private amusement, even if he claimed he was “just trying to catch you two up, old man.”

Tony had taken a lot of interest in Bucky’s recovery, and when he’d brought that point up to Nick, sort of a question but not really, neither of them had much to say. Nick had sighed, rested his cheek in his hand, and made a little gesture of “what are you gonna do.” There were forces at play Steve would never understand, and Tony would probably never feel comfortable enough with him to try to explain. Whatever Howard felt for Captain America--whatever the man felt for Bucky Barnes, he had passed the code for it down through his blood, it seemed.

Steve made plenty of noise as he walked through the apartment, dropping his knapsack on the hard floor, pointedly retrieving a glass of water and a pear from the kitchen bowl before approaching Bucky’s corner. He found things went better if he at least attempted casualness.

Intensity? Went real bad for both of them.

Bucky was leaning against a couple of pillows he’d propped into the corner. Had an empty plate and half-filled juice glass next to him, which offered Steve some reassurance. He had JARVIS watch out for … things, when Steve was gone for more than a few hours, but it was a good sign when Bucky could remind himself to eat without being told.

“Hey, Buck,” he tried, and, after a long moment, got a muzzy reaction, a slow tilting back of Bucky’s head. Obviously, yeah, he had been sitting there in the same position for a long time, bent over those words. Blinking and refocusing his eyes, like he hadn’t realized Steve was home, but there was no doubt that silence would have been met with force.

If Steve had tried to slip in quietly, he’d probably have a knife at his throat now. God knows it still happened from time to time.

Steve offered a hand and watched Bucky lay the book down carefully, spine up and bent at an angle to prop open the pages to the right place. He let himself be tugged up to standing and then watched as Steve picked up the abandoned dishes.

“What did he want to talk to you about?” was the first thing Bucky said. He nosed behind Steve back into the kitchen. This was the other part--the part where Bucky stuck to his back until they were settled with each other again.

Of course he’d be curious. Steve told Bucky the truth, when he could, about where he was going, who he was seeing. The more information he gave Bucky, the more his trust was returned. Hell, Bucky had stayed. He had _stayed._ Right now, that was the most valuable reward for Steve’s trust.

So he did his best to be honest when he could.

Nick had said, after the bill had come and they were getting ready to say their goodbyes, “Howard may have left you a gift there, Cap,” as he pointed at the warped old book in Steve’s hands. “He laid the foundation without even realizing it. Whole generation of folks came up hearing about you, the Howling Commandos ... and Bucky Barnes. Lot of people who would be more than ready to see you two together again--the super soldier and his forever loyal sidekick.”

Nick reached across the table and tapped hard, three times, on the center of Bucky’s chest in the book-cover image. “‘Dawn of America’ and all that. You know, it won’t be that hard to reissue that book right there with some minor modifications, some updates, you know, if your boy ever chooses to come back for good. Hell,” and he chuckled, and it wasn’t too mean, this time, “Stark probably already had the idea. He’s probably drawing up the contract right now.” He turned away and reached for his jacket. “Watch those terms, though. Barnes might need to get himself _representation_.” And he offered Steve one big grin.

Steve shook his head, a little helplessly. Too much. It was too damned much.

Now, in the apartment he had shared with Bucky for a precious few weeks, Bucky at his right hand again, Steve thought about Howard Stark. Twenty-five years old, with the spark, the attitude, and that mouth Tony had definitely inherited. Wondered at Howard at thirty, at forty-five, as a husband, as a new father, later as a difficult one, and finally as a tired old man, ignored and forgotten when it counted.

Thought of the precious bones kept safe--just kept--next to Howard’s parents, his grandparents, and now close to Howard again. Wondered if Howard, given all they knew now, would have had the capacity to understand what was done to Bucky, and to forgive what was done to him.

Steve knew a little--a little--of what it felt like, to lose, to search, and to find only when it was already too late.

But it wasn’t too late for Steve, not anymore. And now it wouldn’t be too late for Bucky, yet another thing Steve owed Howard. Another thing Steve could thank him for.

Fury had called it a gift.

Bucky was watching him, studying Steve’s face and waiting for an answer. Steve shrugged his hesitation off as fatigue, covered it with a tired smile. “Just … old times,” he said, and, with careful, telegraphed movements, slung an arm around both those shoulders and held on tight.

It wasn't the time for it yet, but someday they would talk about Howard.

And Steve would make sure of one thing, and, someday, Bucky would too: He would never be forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and especially those of you who encouraged me with comments and kudos. This was very hard to write. I appreciate every single one of you who came along for the ride.
> 
> I've written some [meta on the story](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com/post/88853180343/meta-on-aint-no-good-thing), if you like that sort of thing.
> 
> [Find me on tumblr](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com) having massive Bucky Barnes angst most of the time.


End file.
